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Network Administrator at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
Real User
Restores files much quicker and offers continuous data protection
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of the most valuable features, having the failover tests where you can see where your actual RTO and RPO would be is really nice, especially for the management level. I really liked the ease of when I need to do a file or folder restore off the cuff. Usually, it takes me less than five minutes to do it, including the mounting of the actual image. That was one thing with Unitrends, it was a similar process but if that backup had aged off of the system, then you had to go to the archive and you find the right disks, load them in, and then actually mount the image."
  • "In terms of improvement, it would be helpful if the implementation team had a better best practices guide and made sure things like the journaling are very clearly understood."

What is our primary use case?

Right now, everything is on-prem including LTR. We are looking at adding the Azure features but we're not quite there yet.

We purchased Zerto to replace our Legacy backup system that still had disks, Archiver Appliance, and everything like that. We had wanted to do something that was diskless but still gave us multiple copies. So we were utilizing both the instantaneous backup and recovery, as well as the LTR, Long Term Retention, function. We do our short-term backup with normal journaling and then our longer-term retention with the LTR appliance, which is going to dedicated hardware in one of our data centers.

We use Zerto for both backup and disaster recovery. It was fairly important that Zerto offers both of these features because Unitrends did provide the traditional backup piece. They also had another product called ReliableDR, which they later rolled into a different product. Unitrends actually bought the company. That piece provided the same functionality as what Zerto is doing now, but with Unitrends that was separate licensing and a different management interface. It wasn't nice to have to bounce between the two systems. The ability to do it all from a single pane of glass that is web-based is nice.

It's definitely not going to save us money. It'll be a peace of mind thing, that we have another copy of our data somewhere. Our DR site is approximately 22 miles away. The likelihood of a tornado or something devastating two communities where our facilities are based is pretty slim. It's peace of mind and it does not require additional storage space on-prem. We know that the charges for data at rest are not free in Azure. We get good pricing discounts being in education but it definitely won't save money.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto was fairly comparable to what Unitrends was offering with multiple products. We didn't gain a ton of extra features. If anything, in the very near future, it will give us the ability for Cloud backup and retention to have some of that sitting out in the Cloud as an offsite backup. We have a primary site, a backup site, and a recovery site. We have multiple copies already, but we want to have one that's not on any of our physical facilities so we will be setting that up shortly. We just need to get our subscriptions and everything coordinated and up to par. That would be the main improvement that it's going to provide us. But we're not quite there yet.

Zerto has reduced downtime. Speaking specifically to the file restores, it's definitely restored things much quicker. Instead of waiting for half-hour to get a file restore done, it's a matter of five minutes or less to do it where they can keep rolling much quicker versus with Unitrends. Other than that, I can't say there are any huge differences.

The difference in downtime would cost my organization very little. We're a small technical college, so we're not loopy on making or losing thousands or millions of dollars if something takes five minutes versus an hour and a half. Higher ed is a different breed of its own. 

What is most valuable?

In terms of the most valuable features, having the failover tests where you can see where your actual RTO and RPO would be is really nice, especially for the management level. I really liked the ease of when I need to do a file or folder restore off the cuff. Usually, it takes me less than five minutes to do it, including the mounting of the actual image. That was one thing with Unitrends, it was a similar process but if that backup had aged off of the system, then you had to go to the archive and you find the right disks, load them in, and then actually mount the image. Our main data stores are close to two terabytes. It would take 15 to 20 minutes just to mount the image. Whereas with Zerto, I don't think it's taken longer than a minute or a minute and a half to mount any image that we've needed to go back to a restore point on.

With Unitrends, some could have taken a half-hour. I'm the only network administrator here, so it usually was a multitasking event where we would wait for it to load. I would take care of a few other things and then come back to it.

Switching to Zerto decreased the time it took but did not decrease the number of people involved. It still requires myself and our network engineer to do any failover, back and forth, because of our networking configuration and everything. I know that Zerto allows us to RE-IP machines as we failover. However, because of the way our public DNS works and some of our firewall rules, we have purposely chosen not to do that in an automated fashion. That would still be a manual operation. It would still involve a couple of people from IT.

Zerto does a pretty decent job at providing continuous data protection. The most important thing that I didn't clearly understand upfront, was the concept of journaling and how that differs from traditional backup. For example, if you set journal retention for seven days or whatever, in your traditional backup, it kept that for seven days, regardless of what was happening. You had it versus the journaling, where coupled with some of the size limits and stuff of the journal size, if you don't configure it correctly, you could actually have less data backed up than what you think you do. I also found out that if you have an event such as ransomware, that all of a sudden throws a lot of IOPS at it, and a lot of change rate, that can age out a journal very quickly and then leave you with the inability to restore if that's not set up properly.

We have requirements to keep student data and information for seven years. We need long-term retention for those purposes. We don't typically need to go back further than 30 days for file restores and everything. There has been the occasion where six months later, we need to restore a file because we had somebody leaving the organization or something like that and that folder or whatever wasn't copied over at the time they left.

Zerto has not saved us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware because we did not have it correctly configured. When we had an event like that, we weren't able to successfully restore from a backup. That has been corrected now. Now that it is configured correctly, I anticipate that it will save us weeks of time. It took almost two weeks to get to a somewhat normal state after our event. We're still recovering somewhat from rebuilding some servers and stuff like that. To get our primary data and programs back up and running to a mostly normal function, took around two weeks.

We also expect that it will reduce the number of staff involved in that type of data recovery situation. We ended up having to hire one of our trusted partners to come in and help us rebuild and remediate. There was at least a dozen staff including our own IT staff, which was another 10 people on top of that. Provided that we do now have this set correctly, it would really drop it down to maybe two or three people.

What needs improvement?

In terms of improvement, it would be helpful if the implementation team had a better best practices guide and made sure things like the journaling are very clearly understood. 

Speaking directly to our incident, we did have professional services guide us with the installation, setup, and configuration. At that time, there was no suggestion to have these appliances not joined to the domain or in a separate VLAN from our normal servers and everything. They are in a completely isolated network. The big thing was being domain-joined. They didn't necessarily give that guidance. In our particular situation, with our incident, had those not been domain-joined, we would have been in a much better place than what we ended up being.

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Zerto
March 2025
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for about two years

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is quite stable. I haven't had system issues with it. The VRAs run, they do their thing. The VPGs run, so as long as we're not experiencing network interruptions between our two campuses, the tasks run as they should. In the event we do have an interruption, they seem to recover fairly quickly catching up on the journaling and stuff like that. It's fairly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is pretty good. We have 50 seats, so we will just be starting to bump up against that very shortly. My impression is that all we need to do is purchase more licenses as needed, and we're good to expand as long as our infrastructure internal can absorb it.

I just recently learned from Zerto Con that they are coming out or have just come out with a Zerto for SaaS applications, which gives the ability to back up Office 365 tenants or Salesforce tenants. I am very interested in learning about that. We have been researching and budgeting for standalone products for Office 365 and Salesforce backups. From my understanding, those products would be backed up from the cloud to the cloud so that it wouldn't have impacts on our internal, long-term appliance, or any of our storage internal infrastructure. That's very appealing. 

It will depend on costs. If it's something that I can't absorb with the funding I have already secured for Office 365, then it would have to be added to our next year's budget because we run from July 1st to June 30th. Our capital timeline budgeting has surpassed us already.

How are customer service and support?

For the most part, the technical support is pretty decent. I've only had to open one or two tickets and the response time has been pretty good. Our questions were answered.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Unitrends. We switched solutions because we were at the end of our lifecycle with the appliances we had. At that time, Unitrends was not quite as mature with the diskless and cloud-type technologies as Zerto was. We were pursuing diskless where we had to rotate out hard drives for archiving. We wanted to get rid of that. That brought us to Zerto and it was recommended by one of our vendors to take a look at it.

Unitrends had replaced Commvault. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was fairly straightforward, deploying the VRAs to the VMware infrastructure and stuff like that was point, click, and let it run it. It was fairly quick. The VRAs took a couple of minutes each, so that wasn't bad at all. Setting up the VPGs is quite simple. There is a little bit of confusion where you can set your default for the journaling and stuff like that and then modify individual VMs after the fact. If you want different journal sizes for different VMs in the same VPG, there are a couple of different spots you can tweak. The setup and requirements of the LTR were a little bit confusing.

We purchased six or eight hours of implementation time but that was over multiple calls. We stood up some of the infrastructures, got some VPGs together, and then they left it to me to set up some other VPGs. Then we did a touch base to see what questions I had and things like that. We had six or eight hours purchased but it was spread over multiple engagements.

For the most part, only I worked on the deployment. Our network engineer was involved briefly just to verify connectivity via the VLANs and firewalls. Once we had established a connection, he was pretty much out of it.

I'm the only one who uses it strictly for our district backups. We're a small college. Our IT programs, HR, or business services, don't have their own separate entities. It's all covered under the primary IT department.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't know that we've saved a ton by replacing our legacy solution with Zerto. I think there's a little less overhead with it. Setting up the VPGs, the protection groups, and everything is a little bit easier and the file restores go much quicker. Fortunately, we haven't had to perform full system restores, but I did not need to do that with Unitrends either. It's usually a folder or a file here and there. We're not really intense on restoring. It has saved a little on management, but not a ton. 

Pricing wasn't horrible. I can't say that it was super competitive. We definitely could have gone with a cheaper price solution but the ease of use and management was really what won me over. Being the only network administrator, I don't have a ton of time to read through 500-page user manuals to get these things set up on a daily basis. I needed something that was very easy to implement and use on a daily basis. In the event I'm out of the office, it would be nice to have simple documentation so that if somebody needs a file restore while I'm gone, it can be handed off to somebody who is not a network admin as their primary job.

I have not run into any additional costs. Obviously, if you're going to utilize Azure for long-term retention it is an additional cost, but that's coming from Microsoft, not Zerto. To my knowledge, there is no additional licensing needed for that, that's all included in the product.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Commvault was another solution we looked at even though it was against my better judgment. We looked at Veeam and Rubrik as well.

In terms of ease of use, Veeam was pretty similar but at the time we still had some physical servers that we no longer have now. We are all virtual now. Veeam couldn't accommodate that, as I understood. I liked the features of Zerto and the ability to get the RTO and RPO reports and see where we're at. The ease of file restores was really nice.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to make sure that you clearly understand what you require. You must have retention and recoverability. Make sure that your journal configurations correspond to accommodate that in an event like ransomware or something like that, that a high change rate can happen. Also, utilize long-term retention for instances like that. 

I appreciate the continuing education that they provide. There is Zerto Con and they have different customer support webinars. They do the new product release webinars and stuff like that, where they're very open on what features they're adding, what they've released, and what improvements they're doing. Whereas it seems like most companies, say, "Okay, we have an update available. Here are the release notes." And, it's up to you to go through that.

I like that Zerto takes the time to sometimes do live demos. We're migrating from 8.0 to 8.5. We're going to do it in a live environment and show approximately how long it takes and all the steps to go through it. Make sure you check this box if you're upgrading from this. I find that very helpful. I'm a visual learner, versus learning from reading. Seeing some of those step-by-step upgrades, releases, and feature demonstrations is very helpful.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2645856 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud and Infrastructure Services Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Replicates seamlessly, detects anomalies, and improves DR testing
Pros and Cons
  • "What I like most about Zerto is that it just works at the end of the day. It is almost a set-it-and-forget-it solution in relation to its capability of keeping the DR environment in sync."
  • "What I like most about Zerto is that it just works at the end of the day."
  • "They should not make it so expensive so that I can buy more of it."
  • "They should not make it so expensive so that I can buy more of it."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use Zerto for our DR requirements.

How has it helped my organization?

Near-synchronous replication is pretty much a major benefit from our perspective. We are mainly using it for DR.

We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. With the use of Zerto, we now have defined RPOs, which is good.

Zerto has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing. It has also enabled us to do DR testing more thoroughly, so it has reduced the time, but it has also enabled us to do more of it.

In terms of its effect on our IT resiliency strategy, from our on-prem environment, it has been the cornerstone. We are now building a new DR strategy around Zerto because of the value that it has.

We were able to realize the benefits of Zerto pretty much immediately. At the end of the day, we had a gap. It had an immediate impact on our ability to recover.

What is most valuable?

What I like most about Zerto is that it just works at the end of the day. It is almost a set-it-and-forget-it solution in relation to its capability of keeping the DR environment in sync.

Testing is also a good feature. Bubble tests ensure the integrity of those images, and the replication process is also a major benefit.

Its capability to detect anomalies also within the transport layer is valuable. While moving and replicating the traffic, we have a little bit of comfort because of its ability to detect ransomware or anomalies within the transfer.

What needs improvement?

They should not make it so expensive so that I can buy more of it. Other than that, I do not have anything. We have not come across any issue. We are still fairly new to the product.

For how long have I used the solution?

Zerto has been in our environment for 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been rock solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability for us is based on the licensing count. I would scale it across the organization if possible, but I cannot. At the moment, it is meeting our current requirements based on our licensing constraints.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The only disaster recovery product we used was centered around recovery or restoration from backup. We never really had a disaster recovery product per se. It was managed by other backup mechanisms and replication forms. 

Zerto was put in because we knew we had a gap within our DR strategy based on RPO extensions. It was deployed to bridge gaps within our DR strategy at that moment. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was done by HPE. We went with a turnkey solution with HPE Professional Services and our incumbent tender previously used. They handled the installation and setup. We handle the management of it now, but I cannot comment much on the installation because they did it for us. It worked, and we went through training and have been using the product since.

Its learning has been fine. It has been like any other product. HPE has supported us. They have provided professional training for the team. I have not heard from the team about any issues or gaps. HPE has been very supportive of the implementation of Zerto.

It does not require any maintenance at our end. The installation is still fairly new. Nothing has come to a low yet. Over a period of time, we would probably have to spend more time on the maintenance aspect of it, but at the moment, it is pretty much a set-and-forget.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

From a pricing standpoint, there is value in it without question. However, it can become quite expensive when you start looking at the number of workloads you have in the environment and what you would like to do.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We assessed other products in the market but found Zerto to be the best within this particular space. Additionally, Zerto was installed as part of a data center refresh program with HPE. We replaced compute and storage within our on-premise data centers. Considering Zerto is part of HPE, it made more sense to implement an end-to-end solution with HPE.

What other advice do I have?

To new users evaluating it, I would say that if they can afford it, they should buy it.

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten, and that is because there is always room for improvement.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
Zerto
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2177538 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
It's much faster and cheaper than our previous solution, but it's been unreliable in our environment so far
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the fact that Zerto is target agnostic. It doesn't care what type of storage it writes to. The journaling is also excellent. You can easily and quickly restore to seconds before an event. The immutable data copies feature is one reason we adopted Zerto. That's one of its selling points."
  • "Zerto's near-synchronous replication is excellent when it works. I'm trying to be nice to them because I like the product a lot, but we're having a lot of difficulty with it in our environment."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto for disaster recovery, backup, and ransomware protection. The 3-2-1 backup strategy requires us to have two backups of our production data on different media. One copy is on disk and tape backup, and the other is hosted off-site for disaster recovery. With journaling and the persistent backups we take nightly, it almost obviates 3-2-1 because it renders some unnecessary aspects. 

How has it helped my organization?

We adopted Zerto, hoping to speed up our recovery time and improve the overall security of our environment and data. We haven't realized the full benefits, but I expect we will improve our security posture and disaster recovery speed.  

Zerto would enable us to do cloud-based DR instead of a physical data center, but we are based in a very rural area of Colorado. We're deep in the mountains, so leveraging the cloud is challenging. We have little-to-no cloud presence, but Zerto can enable us to move our disaster recovery into the cloud because it is agnostic to the backup target. That could easily be a cloud provider. We only need redundant and reliable circuits to the cloud.

The impact on our RTO is theoretical because we haven't had to do any critical recovery. Based on our testing, it should significantly improve our RTO because the backup technology is more efficient than our previous solution. RTO is one of Zerto's strengths. Zerto enabled us to test our DR plan. Our disaster recovery needed a lot of help when I joined two years ago, and it's one of the projects I have been working on. Zerto is central to our DR plan. It's the primary cog in that machine. Zerto cut our hardware and maintenance costs by about 50 percent.

What is most valuable?

I like the fact that Zerto is target agnostic. It doesn't care what type of storage it writes to. The journaling is also excellent. You can easily and quickly restore to seconds before an event. The immutable data copies feature is one reason we adopted Zerto. That's one of its selling points.

Zerto is easy enough to use. It's as usable as any other backup solution. We're accustomed to dealing with complex options and everything available to us in the suite. 

What needs improvement?

I tried a file-level recovery, which should work on any server. However, the server we need to protect the most is the one giving us problems. We couldn't do a file recovery without restoring the entire server to a recovery partition that isn't part of the production and pulling the files off it that way.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication is excellent when it works. I'm trying to be nice to them because I like the product a lot, but we're having a lot of difficulty with it in our environment.

There is a disconnect between the sales pitch and what we can do with Zerto in practice. We've been trying to reconcile that for most of the year. There should be more continuity between sales and implementation to ensure the solution is implemented how our presales engineer pitched it to us. 

They need to have some accountability. Maybe the implementation engineer should be on the line so that they know what is presented and agreed upon regarding the implementation in our environment. The implementation should have been precisely what we were expecting. 

I was part of the pre-purchase team as the information security manager. I handed it off to my infrastructure team to implement, and they practically had to start from scratch. Zerto handed it off to their professional services to implement, and I assigned the job to my team. 

There were a lot of questions and things Zerto couldn't do on its end. HP purchased Zerto as we were engaging with them. I don't know if that was related to our frustrations, but I know that acquisitions can make a product messy for a bit. I don't want to blast Zerto. It's an excellent product, and I would love it if it could work as advertised. I've seen it do some of that for us. We've had a rough start, and we're still trying to find that sweet spot.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Zerto for nearly a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto isn't reliable in our current environment. We keep running into these weird little issues. At one point, we didn't have complete backups on a couple of key servers for more than a week because of this issue. If we had gone down that week, it would have been ugly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto seems pretty scalable. We bought something that we can add on to and increase the horsepower. Every change we've made has been smooth.

How are customer service and support?

Their support and account management teams have been pretty amazing. They are bending over backward to make it right with us, so they deserve a lot of credit for that.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Avamar. Zerto's recovery is faster, and it's a little more straightforward. Zerto is an improvement in RPO, RTO, ransomware protection, immutability, and cost. Avamar costs nearly 75 percent more. There's no significant difference in ease of use. 

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the initial setup. After the deployment, there is a lot of maintenance. It throws out lots of errors, and we sometimes need to rebuild some of its components. Our backup guy is a little frustrated at times. 

What was our ROI?

We haven't seen a return aside from saving money on the annual license because we've had to invest so much time into getting it to work.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Zerto's price seems fair. It's competitive. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Dell Avamar for Data Domain offers functionality similar to Zerto, but we weren't taking advantage of it. We also looked at Rubrik, but it's a cloud-based solution, and it's a little costly. We're not in a position to leverage cloud solutions at this time. Avamar costs too much to get the same features. Doing a rip and replace was more economical than keeping the hardware in place and adding the functionality.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Zerto a six out of ten. I only give it a low rating because of the issues we've faced lately in our environment. If we didn't have those issues, I'd probably give it an eight.

If you plan to implement Zerto, I suggest double-checking everything. Confirm the configurations and ensure your backup targets are sufficiently sized. You must know what you want from the product, and that requires guidance from the sales engineer. Make sure the plan is solidified and you have a document that spells the whole thing out.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2535795 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Disaster Recovery Manager at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
We can quickly restore our servers, reduce downtime, and rely on the stability
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto is a flexible and resilient business continuity and disaster recovery solution."
  • "Zerto's current reporting capabilities are insufficient for our needs."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Zerto as a disaster recovery solution.

We utilize Zerto for three replication scenarios: on-premises to on-premises, on-premises to cloud, and planned cloud-to-cloud replication.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto is easy to use and implement, especially when performing a failover.

Zerto's near synchronous replication is valuable for our SQL database.

The benefits of Zerto were immediately apparent. After implementation, we quickly realized we were protected against any disaster. Zerto also provides visibility into the health of replication, allowing us to identify and address any potential issues.

Since implementing Zerto, we have observed a positive impact on our Recovery Point Objectives, which have been reduced by half.  Zerto's ability to easily group servers by application and configure protection groups streamlined our processes. Moreover, Zerto's support for on-premises to cloud replication is invaluable. We've leveraged this capability to replicate all systems to the cloud, establishing a robust disaster recovery solution. Zerto has proven to be an effective cloud migration and disaster recovery planning tool.

Our Recovery Time Objective determines how quickly we can restore our infrastructure. Zerto has been instrumental in reducing our RTO by enabling rapid recovery in any disaster recovery scenario.

Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. For example, some servers have a recovery point objective of just five seconds. During disaster recovery tests conducted last year, we recovered 60 servers within eight hours, including server delivery, startup, and operating system verification by our team.

Zerto is our primary tool for achieving all disaster recovery objectives.

What is most valuable?

Zerto is a flexible and resilient business continuity and disaster recovery solution. Its industry-leading replication technology enables seamless data protection across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.

Another valuable feature is the failover capability. Unlike many other tools we tested, Zerto allows us to perform a disaster recovery test without risk to our production environment.

What needs improvement?

Zerto's current reporting capabilities are insufficient for our needs. We require detailed reports to analyze the performance of our environments. To achieve this, we have developed a custom reporting solution using Zerto and other tools to thoroughly assess VPG configurations and overall environment health against specified parameters. Unfortunately, Zerto does not natively provide this level of reporting functionality.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is highly stable, and I do not recall encountering any crashes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling Zerto is easy. We just need to add additional virtual/appliances servers.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto provides excellent support, but response times to our issues can sometimes be a concern, possibly due to the size and complexity of our environment.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We currently utilize both SRM and Zerto, but SRM's replication capabilities are limited to data centers, while Zerto offers additional cloud replication options. Unlike SRM, which is exclusively designed for VMware infrastructure, Zerto is compatible with other virtual platforms, providing greater flexibility.

Zerto is easier to use than SRM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment is straightforward. We only need to deploy a few servers to build an environment and start to replicate.

Deploying Zerto in a single region required three months. One contributing factor to this timeline was the time-intensive process of collecting Virtual Recovery Appliances and deploying them across 500 ESXi servers. A team of ten architects and engineers was dedicated to this project.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house by my team and me. As the architect, I oversaw the project's planning, construction, and deployment. We consulted with Zerto to identify potential areas for improvement.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Compared to other options like SRM, Zerto is a more expensive solution, making it primarily suitable for larger organizations. Smaller and medium-sized businesses might find Zerto's cost expensive. While Azure Site Recovery is free for users of Azure cloud services, Zerto offers a broader range of features.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

Our organization takes a unique approach to disaster recovery testing, conducting 15 tests annually to meet policy and audit requirements. Zerto is the cornerstone of our DR testing strategy, enabling us to validate between five and seven applications in each test.

Zerto requires ongoing maintenance and a dedicated person monitors it daily. However, we must still test and deploy updates into our production environment.

Potential users should be knowledgeable of virtual environments and clearly understand their disaster recovery needs, including the required replication type, desired recovery strategy, and whether Zerto aligns with their specific requirements.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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SHRINKHALA SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Advertising Standards Council of India
Real User
Top 10
It has improved our RTO, is stable, and helps manage our complex environment
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto's greatest strength is its speed."
  • "The primary concern expressed by all server users is the lack of robust integration features."

What is our primary use case?

We do many data-related activities for various government ministries in India. We use Zerto to back up and recover data in many training and capacity-building activities.

We implemented Zerto to address challenges with data centralization in our complex platform environment. Previously, pulling data from a central source was impossible due to the need to feed it into an internal location before deployment. This limitation hindered customization and integration efforts. Additionally, integrating our primary data source, previously used with IBM, into the new platform proved difficult due to compatibility issues. Zerto's capabilities were seen as a potential solution to these problems.

How has it helped my organization?

The remarkable benefits of Zerto have yet to manifest fully. The software operates efficiently without significant bugs or issues, and Zerto's customer support has been responsive. While real-time reporting is a standout feature compared to other trial products, its impact on our ongoing projects remains to be determined. A full assessment of Zerto's potential will require an additional six months.

Zerto has significantly improved our Recovery Time Objective, particularly regarding project timelines. The expedited turnaround during critical project phases has been instrumental in streamlining our processes. By accelerating these stages, we've reduced the need for additional developer resources and eliminated time-consuming tasks associated with establishing essential parameters and metrics. As a result, projects that previously took six months can now be completed in as little as four. This accelerated timeline has enhanced profitability and optimized resource allocation, allowing us to maximize project revenue.

Zerto has significantly reduced our disaster recovery testing efforts. By consolidating software and streamlining processes, we've dramatically decreased the required manpower. Multiple teams efficiently utilize a single platform, eliminating the need for disparate services and reducing costs. This centralized approach has markedly decreased the time and resources invested in disaster recovery testing and pre-testing activities.

What is most valuable?

Zerto's greatest strength is its speed. We never encountered lag or interruptions, even when working remotely from home or other locations with potentially limited internet bandwidth. The software's streaming performance was exceptional, without buffering or connectivity issues. This was a primary factor in our decision, as Zerto emphasized its ability to operate effectively on lower bandwidth connections during the initial demo. Deploying the software in any remote location is straightforward and hassle-free.

What needs improvement?

The primary concern expressed by all server users is the lack of robust integration features. While Zerto offers some integration capabilities, the smooth and efficient data flow between portals remains a significant challenge. The support and technical teams know this issue and actively seek user feedback, but progress has been slow. The current process, involving multiple platforms and a database management system bottleneck, is time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, while reporting and dashboard features exist, real-time reporting and mobile functionality require improvement. The user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Customization, a critical requirement for government clients, is another concern. Implementing requested changes is often time-consuming and expensive, hindering adaptability. Addressing these integration, reporting, user experience, and customization issues is essential for improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Currently, Zerto only offers an annual subscription, but it would be beneficial to provide quarterly and semi-annual subscriptions to help retain clients.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not encountered any performance issues, such as lagging or crashing. The system operates efficiently and reliably under various conditions, even with significantly lower bandwidth. Zerto has consistently demonstrated stability and high speed, ensuring uninterrupted application performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Approximately 50 to 60 individuals within our ecosystem utilize Zerto directly or indirectly. Given its operational efficiency, which I estimate to be between 95 percent, I confidently assert its scalability. While we haven't encountered a scenario within our ecosystem that necessitates testing its scalability limits, its exceptional performance thus far strongly suggests its capacity to handle increased demands.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto uses a ticketing system and offers support through a help desk accessible via chat or phone. A dedicated technical team is assigned to address customer issues, which are typically resolved within 24 hours. We have not experienced any significant delays in issue resolution.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We find the Zerto pricing fits our budget.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

Maintenance is required quarterly. The Zerto technical and business teams collaborate with us on the backend to remove all the repeated queries that make the system sluggish. This service is charged additionally.

I strongly recommend that anyone considering purchasing Zerto begin with the 30-day trial, which can be extended to 60 days. This ample timeframe allows a thorough evaluation of all features and functionalities. Understanding Zerto's customization and integration capabilities to align with specific business needs is crucial. Had I followed this approach and shared my feedback earlier, the outcome might have been different. Therefore, it's essential to fully explore the trial version before committing to an annual subscription. Close collaboration with the Zerto technical team is vital to ensure successful implementation. While sales teams often present an optimistic view, real-world experiences from existing users provide the most valuable insights. I encourage potential customers to connect with other Zerto users through industry networks to gather honest feedback before purchasing.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Mark Boudreau - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at University of Nebraska
Real User
Top 20
Increased our ability to restore at a point in time
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is how quickly it powers down the original source VMs and the speed at which it powers up the new VMs. The amount of time it takes to put up the operating system is valuable. The speed is what I like the best."
  • "Zerto's documentation is outdated. I'm finding it hard to find documents related to my questions. Their documentation is bad."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is to continuously replicate our VMs to our DR site. Having the ability to recover them at almost any point in time, mostly back thirty days, is the main purpose of Zerto. 

How has it helped my organization?

We didn't previously have a continuous replication tool and now we have the ability to recover to any number of points in time. That's really beneficial to us. It cuts down our recovery time. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is how quickly it powers down the original source VMs and the speed at which it powers up the new VMs. The amount of time it takes to put up the operating system is valuable. The speed is what I like the best. 

The near-synchronous replication is awesome. When you get hit by a cyberattack, you never know where the clean VM resides, and at what point in time it actually exists. Having the ability to find the point in time when we are clean is a good thing.

We are going from a physical data center to a physical data center at the moment.

We use Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. It increased our ability to restore at a point in time. We didn't have it before, and now we have it.

Compared to other tools, Zerto is a lot faster. There are tools with your primary block storage backup, but they're just not as fast.

What needs improvement?

I'm having a problem with CentOS 7 and with VMs with multiple network adapters. Zerto recognizes those multiple network adapters on CentOS 7 vm but it will not give me the option to specify a failover IP, for that particular VM. Something's not working right, but Zerto is going to follow up. 

For how long have I used the solution?

Zerto has been in production for three months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It seems stable so far. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability seems pretty easy. 

How are customer service and support?

Customer service is really good. Technical technical support is lacking. At least from who I've been talking to. Maybe my case has not gotten bumped up to the higher level technicians. Customer support is great, and they're really responsive but their technical knowledge is just not quite there.

Zerto's documentation is outdated. I'm finding it hard to find documents related to my questions. Their documentation is bad.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very easy. We needed a little help with the initial configuration, but it was pretty straightforward. 

What about the implementation team?

We worked with Eagle Technologies for the deployment. We loved them.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I wasn't involved in negotiating any pricing. It evidently worked into our budget.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Cohesity and Rubrik. I don't know that there's anything like Zerto. We went with Zerto because our third-party vendor recommended it. We also did a proof of concept two years ago. We liked what we saw with Zerto so we went with it. 

Everybody taunts their one pane of glass but Zerto is simple to use. I really like the GUI, the interface is not too busy. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. We don't have a test network setup. I know with Zerto, you can simulate a recovery. 

Zerto would be a perfect ten if the documentation was easier and if level 1 support would be more knowledgeable.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Angelo Winfield - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Lone Star Park
Real User
Works in the background and does not interfere with the production usage of the server
Pros and Cons
  • "I've used backup solutions like Veeam in the past, but Zerto seemed like a better, faster solution. We adopted Zerto because of the speed, and because we wanted to do everything in-house."
  • "When I have a technical question, it sometimes takes a while for tech support to respond."

What is our primary use case?

Zerto is deployed on a VM, and we use it to replicate the database for our POS system in our data center.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto helps us when our server has an emergency. When we needed to get something from a server that had a corrupt file, it saved us from needing to go back to a tape or a backup to use that server. The recovery works better than our backup. I would rate that nine out of a 10.

It works great because we only use it in VMware for our virtual machines. We use Zerto Instead of snapshots. Zerto is a lot quicker than other solutions. It cuts our downtime in half when we need to recover data.

What is most valuable?

Data replication is the most valuable feature. The near-synchronous replication works in the background, so it does not interfere with the production usage of the server. Zerto is challenging to set up but easy to use. It's not difficult to configure once you see how it works. I'd give it at least eight out of 10 for ease of use.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Zerto for about a year.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto is highly scalable. Even though we only have it on a couple of servers, we could do all of them if we want to.

How are customer service and support?

Customer support is great. I'd say it is at least a nine. When I have a technical question, it sometimes takes a while for tech support to respond. That's a problem everywhere.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used backup solutions like Veeam in the past, but Zerto seemed like a better, faster solution. We adopted Zerto because of the speed, and because we wanted to do everything in-house. I would rate Zerto eight out of ten for ease of use, but Veeam seven out of 10. 

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Zerto is straightforward, but I needed to call tech support a few times with some basic questions. I handled the setup by myself because I'm in charge of servers and VMware. It doesn't require much maintenance aside from updates. 

What was our ROI?

It reduces the time and effort needed to get our data. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Zerto a nine out of ten. When I first installed it, I learned a lot about how it worked and how to integrate it with my storage. I needed to configure our storage to work with this because we do everything in-house. It's crucial to understand how everything works together.

You need to read the installation instructions thoroughly and prepare your VMware environment. I jumped right into it and didn't go through everything. Read everything and watch some videos first to prepare. If I do it again, I will watch the videos a few times to make sure I understand what's required and go from there.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
IT Supervisor at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
Provides real-time analytics and monitoring, enabling our organization to quickly identify and resolve issues
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the customization that allows me to set my protection group myself."
  • "I would like to see Zerto implement a pay-as-you-go model."

What is our primary use case?

I use Zerto to monitor replication, configure protection, and manage disaster recovery and performance.

We implemented Zerto to manage disaster recovery and also for faster performance on backups and failovers.

How has it helped my organization?

Learning how to use Zerto can be easily achieved with some training and practice.

Zerto has helped us reduce downtime, retrieve backups faster, and manage our workload more efficiently.

Zerto has reduced downtime by 20 percent and helps protect the VMs in our environment.

It is 25 percent faster at recovering data compared to IBM Spectrum Protect.

Zerto has helped save four hours per week in recovery situations and has reduced our disaster recovery testing by 30 percent. We have used five percent of those savings towards other value-added tasks.

It has positively impacted our IT resiliency strategy.

Zerto enables disaster recovery in the cloud which is important.

Zerto provides real-time analytics and monitoring, enabling our organization to quickly identify and resolve issues. 

What is most valuable?

Zerto makes my work easier. Replicating my settings helps me recover point objectives faster and retain policies.

The most valuable feature is the customization that allows me to set my protection group myself.

What needs improvement?

While Zerto provides good service, I find the pricing to be high and believe there is room for improvement. I would like to see Zerto implement a pay-as-you-go model.

While Zerto offers scalability, its implementation can be more challenging in larger organizations, indicating room for improvement in its scalability features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of Zerto seven out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of Zerto seven out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support responds promptly to our requests.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used IBM Spectrum Protect but Zerto provides a quicker recovery time. With IBM the recovery process for particular data is manual but with Zerto it is automated.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment of Zerto was straightforward and took two hours to complete. Two people were involved in the deployment.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a 20 percent return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Zerto is priced high.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.

Zerto is deployed in multiple departments and we have ten users.

I recommend Zerto because it helps recover data faster and improves its overall quality.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.